The first novel I completed and edited was The Bride of War. It’s a fantasy novel about a sort of sheriff who has to protect a mountain village and at the same time preserve a pact with an ancient and creepy old dragon, who gets fed a virgin every few years. I know, I know, sounds pretty passée, but I did some stuff with the old concept that might–I repeat might–surprise you.

As for editing, well, I write all of my own fiction. Even the short story collections are all my own work. I tried to get some people to write with/for me, but there were so few serious offers, I decided to abandon the idea for the nonce.

The word nonce doesn’t translate well from Canadian English to British English. Here & Australia it has a slang meaning for something you didn’t intend, but I know what you mean.

Must be hard work doing it that way, but you’re right about the writing problem, people get flattered when you ask, but actually getting copy out of them can be difficult unless they’re getting paid for it. A lot of people outside publishing don’t understand the royalty system whereby (short of advances if you’re famous) nobody gets paid until sales are made and even then it can be months as the publisher has to receive sales information back from the vendors.

Hmmn. Yeah, wasn’t aware the usage had changed so radically. Definitely not inferring sex offences against children. Might have to let that one go from the vocabulary. *sigh* Shakespeare would grumble.

And yeah, it’s not been easy trying to start my writing career, even independently, where I stand to make more money than ‘published’ writers. I keep hoping I’ll have enough material to impress someone in another year or so, and start making sales based on the impression of sum total effect that seems to inspire so many peoples’ purchases these days. The plot summaries alone don’t seem to be doing it for many people.

Now that my album is more or less finished (minus rerecording and post production), I can focus on promoting sales again.

Yeah it’s hard building things up to a full time income from royalties without either writing about very commercial topics or being very aggressive about sales/marketing to ramp up the volume.

As you point out a “published author” has the publisher pay an illustrator to design the cover but for all the services the publisher provides (and risk) takes a low % cut of each sale. So yes if you’re basically self-publishing it’d be difficult (although you get a larger cut per each sale). Being author/proofreader/editor/publisher can tax most people though.

It’s the “critical mass” you need to achieve which as you point out is partly based on output (people being more likely to buy from an author who has other books too).

The plot summaries (which used to be on the dust jacket) were written to entice the reader and often not by the author themselves. It’s basically the literary equivalent of a movie trailer or film poster and requires a certain style of copy that’s hard to master as it’s got to convince the casual reader to carry on and purchase.